Chapter 2
"Isolde." Cyrus's voice carried a sharp edge.
"It wasn't me," I said, explaining that Elena had fallen on her own and I hadn't laid a finger on her.
Elena's tears had come too fast, the fall had been timed too perfectly. Surely he would see something was off.
Cyrus listened, then crouched down and lifted Elena up from the floor.
"I believe you didn't mean for it to happen," he said to me without sparing me so much as a glance.
He was already bending to inspect the wound on Elena's arm.
"Does it hurt?" he asked her.
Elena shook her head. Tears trembled in her blue eyes, but she forced them back. "It doesn't hurt... really, it doesn't... Miss Isolde didn't push me. I lost my balance..."
A flustered defense. A clumsy cover.
I stood where I was, watching the scene coldly, and the whole thing suddenly struck me as absurd.
Cyrus ordered the butler to have someone tend to Elena's wound, then had her sent back to her room.
That night, before bed, Cyrus came to me.
I went on removing my makeup, ignoring him.
He stepped behind me, took the brush from the maid's hand, and began combing my hair himself.
A strand slipped loose. He caught it, wound it around his finger, and watched me in the mirror. Then, out of nowhere, he said, "Don't lower yourself to her level."
He didn't have to say who "her" meant. I already knew.
I gave a sullen "Mm," which earned a soft laugh from him.
As for that eyesore of a girl, I chose to keep her out of sight and out of mind, and refused Cyrus's suggestion that she be assigned to wait on me.
As for Cyrus, he had been busy with something lately, and his visits to me grew fewer and fewer.
From what the maids told me, the new human servant had been placed in the kitchens, where she'd made a fool of herself more than once. Small injuries seemed to find her every other day.
Cyrus was always cleaning up after her, until at last he grew tired of it and pulled her out of the kitchen to force her to tidy his study instead.
I had no interest in dwelling on those headache-inducing details.
After all, there was something far more anticipated drawing near, and I needed to prepare for it.
The Night of the Blood Moon was the grand ceremony our kind held once every sixty years.
On that night, the elders of the thirteen clans and countless vampire nobles would gather together at Thornhold Castle.
It was also the day of my coming-of-age ceremony.
A vampire was not considered an adult until their hundredth year. Before that, we were all children.
Cyrus had promised that, at the ball on the Night of the Blood Moon, he would formally present me to the whole of vampirekind.
I had waited a very long time for that day.
The gown had been commissioned half a year in advance.
When the designer came to settle on a style, she brought sketches of countless designs for me to choose from.
Cyrus, watching from the side, was satisfied with none of them. He insisted on designing a gown himself, one that would suit me perfectly.
The final design was, indeed, breathtaking.
A long gown of black velvet, the neckline and cuffs set with rubies, the hem worked over with elaborate embroidery.
I tried it on when the designer came to ask if any alterations were needed.
"My rose deserves a gown like this. Nothing else does her justice," Cyrus said, his voice full of admiration.
Looking at myself in the full-length mirror then, with Cyrus standing tall and slender behind me, even I felt a quiet thrill rise in my chest for my coming-of-age.
After that night, I would be a grown vampire, just like Cyrus. I could attend the gatherings of our kind, and I could...
I glanced at Cyrus. He happened to be looking at me too, and the ripple in his eyes made me flush in a way I rarely did.
Time passes quickly when one is waiting and hoping.
The day before the Night of the Blood Moon, word came that the gowns had been finished and delivered. I hurried eagerly to the dressing room.
Sure enough, several new ensembles had been laid out, each in a different style, arranged carefully on the carpet at the center of the room.
Among them, the men's set which is black with a dark crimson cloak, was unmistakably meant for Cyrus.
Understated and magnificent. It suited him.
I nodded, stepped around it, and looked for the gown I knew so well. But to my surprise, it was nowhere to be found.
The gown was gone.
Puzzled, I went to ask the butler, but run into Elena in the corridor first.
She was standing before the tall corridor windows, her figure graceful, blonde hair tumbling loose over her shoulders, blue eyes fixed on her own reflection in the glass.
And the gown she wore was the very one I had been searching for.